


Act III: Revolution/Resolution

by Burgie, ClaraDiamondsong, clightlee, copperheadpony, eyeskillercold, NumiTuziNeru, Shadowlord13, SwimmingTiger, willownorthbook, ZDusk, Zebrablanket



Series: SSO Wild West AU Novella [3]
Category: Star Stable
Genre: Multi, SSO Wild West AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-04-24 20:55:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14363484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraDiamondsong/pseuds/ClaraDiamondsong, https://archiveofourown.org/users/clightlee/pseuds/clightlee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperheadpony/pseuds/copperheadpony, https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyeskillercold/pseuds/eyeskillercold, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NumiTuziNeru/pseuds/NumiTuziNeru, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowlord13/pseuds/Shadowlord13, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwimmingTiger/pseuds/SwimmingTiger, https://archiveofourown.org/users/willownorthbook/pseuds/willownorthbook, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZDusk/pseuds/ZDusk, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zebrablanket/pseuds/Zebrablanket
Summary: The third and final installment in the SSO Wild West novella! Characters belonging to folks without AO3 accounts are created by the following:Allison Nightstar- a-lonely-star-gazer on tumblrCrystal Bluenight- miikahima on tumblrDorian Wolf- rebecawolfforest on tumblrEden Dawnvalley- sso-eden-dawnvalley on tumblrIzabella Snowbell- dizzy-izzy-sso on tumblr





	1. In which we find the eye of the storm

**Author's Note:**

> General trigger warnings for guns 'n' stuff

 

The storm howled around the outlaws as they raced towards the massive machine. Rain blurred Zelda’s vision, and she was forced the shift her poker face into an intense squint. Allison, just ahead, put up an arm to shield her face from the pelting rain, and strained her senses to stay behind Izabella.

Izabella drew a pistol as she ranged alongside the team of horses pulling the machine. She dropped the reins, trusting her horse to carry them through, and aimed for the driver. This was her shot, and to make it count-

Izabella pulled her horse up in the spray of mud. The storm had suddenly ceased, or, rather, it had ceased directly overhead.

“The eye of the storm,” shouted Allison, reining up next to her. Her yell was shockingly loud in the eerie silence.

Zelda slid up, Phantom gliding past both Izabella and Allison in his haste. “Why aren’t you- oh.”

The team, toiling past them at a painstaking grind, was unmanned. The mounted guards plodding alongside were inert.

Zelda wordlessly rode up to one and walked a few steps alongside. The guard didn’t seem to notice her, or stir; one hand barely grasped his drooping reins. Zelda experimentally reached out a hand and pushed against his shoulder; he’d have toppled from his saddle had Allison not galloped up and yanked him back by his collar.

“They’ve been poisoned by this machine,” she announced. “I knew that Kembell’s enterprises were detrimental to the health of the miners, but I had no idea it could be this bad. There've been strikes and sabotage at most of his mines, mass walkouts because of how dangerous it is for the miners. Whatever they're after drains their spirit. These must be what's left.”

Izabella felt a chill run down her spine. “Get back,” she whispered. When Zelda and Allison kept riding next to the guard, she said it louder, a command: “Get back!”

Allison and Zelda trotted back to her side, and together they followed the machine and its coterie at a safe distance.

“How do they know where to go?” Zelda intoned, finally.

Allison shook her head. “They must be following orders. But who’s driving the team?”

Izabella squinted through the rain, now slowly enveloping the team as it gained distance. She pulled the telescope from her bag, peered through it for what seemed an age, then started. “Wait, someone’s up there! In the machine!”

Allison spun a pistol from her holster and cocked it before shielding its firing pan with a slicker sleeve. “Then we take him out. Stop this once and for all. Free the guards.”

“No!” Izabella threw an arm out to stop Allison’s dash. “He looked frightened.”

Zelda raised her eyebrows. “I would be too, seeing my protectors falling into a trance around me one by one. But a frightened criminal mastermind is still a criminal mastermind.”

Izabella tried not to look frantic. The man at the controls of the machine hadn’t looked like the other guards- he’s been alert, alive, young, about her age, bespectacled and red-headed. He’d looked right about how she felt right now: vulnerable, in over her head, but determined to see something through. She felt like the weight of the world was on her shoulders, and she knew the man in the machine felt that way too. “We’ll get him out and question him,” she announced, trying to channel calm and authority into her voice.

Allison and Zelda exchanged a look. “Whatever you say, boss lady,” Allison replied.

…

Eden rode into Goldspur’s Arroyo, Genesis lathered and panting, in the gloaming. Ronja and Crystal were just catching their breaths from updating Zoe on their discovery. They quickly got Eden up to speed, and their news of a pit filled with toiling horses and no people at all was enough to wipe Willow’s offer from Eden’s mind. For a moment.

“So let me get this straight,” Zoe, ever the level-headed schoolmarm, said, making a calming motion with her hands. “You don’t think the hundred-plus horses being forced to pull a hazardous material from the mine are being supervised?”

“Not by anyone we could see,” Ronja growled. “But someone’s gotta be cracking the whip down there. Didn’t look like something you could just _ask_ a horse to do.”

Crystal nodded earnestly. “Whoever’s controlling them must be hidden somewhere, protected from the harmful effects of the mines.”

“That’s horrible! Forcing horses to work themselves to death in poison air, knowingly,” Eden said in disgust. Then she brightened slightly. “But you all must be hungry. Willow at the general store packed us some food.” She pulled the sack from her saddlebag and dismounted. Zoe began rustling through the bag as Eden fiddled with the lamp, attempting to get it to catch.

“What is it that they’re mining? Did you see?” Zoe asked levelly as she took stock of their provisions, straining to tell what they were in the darkness.

“A metal-”

“A rock-”

Crystal and Ronja spoke at once, then exchanged a glance.

“Purple,” they said together.

Eden yelped. The lamp had flared to life- its flame, purple.

Zoe, without pause, swung the heavy sack at the lamp, knocking it from Eden’s hands and shattering it on the stony ground. The purple flame guttered and then went out.

“What did you do that for?” Eden demanded, angrily. “Willow-” then she gasped.

“She wanted us to be found,” Zoe snapped. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d sent a patrol after you, Eden.”

“How do you know?” asked Crystal, trying to keep her voice from rising in fear.

“Because I saw her watch us leave town,” Zoe explained cooly. “I know when I’m being watched. Eden, did she try to bribe you? To tell her where we were going?”

Eden nodded numbly.

“Did you tell?”

“Better fuckin’ not’ve,” grumbled Ronja.

“I didn’t!” Eden cried. “She… she said she’d take me back to New Jorvik with her. When the town went under.”

“Will you?” asked Zoe, staring her down.

“No!” The word was out of Eden’s mouth before she had time to think about her lifetime of yearning to set foot on the island of her ancestors.

“Good,” Zoe said tersely. “Ronja, put those chocolate drops down. For all we know she might have poisoned them. In case we’re being tailed, we need to move _now._ ”

“To free the horses?” Crystal asked, voice soaring with both fear and courage.

“Yes,” Zoe answered. “But first, we find the sorcerer that’s controlling them.”

…

“We move now,” Dorian told Katja.

He still held his carving knife to Sabine’s throat. The church bells were just fading into the night, and he knew that someone up in the belfry would have his back. He’d also seen a pair of goons shot from on high- another sign that someone was watching over his bluff.

“All right,” Katja said in a monotone. She put her hands above her head and backed out the door into the darkened street.

Dorian followed, pushing Sabine. They marched out into the main street, which was as silent as a tomb.

“New Jorvik!” Dorian boomed, finding breath enough somewhere in his heaving lungs to be heard across town. “I’ve negotiated an armistice. You have one hour to leave without harm from Dark Corps, the Rangers, or any of their associates.”

He could hear movement spring up in the houses near him; windows banging shut and feet running, gathering things and children, racing to prepare to leave. He let out his breath.

“I’ll keep the Marshal safe with me until our hour is up,” he told Katja.

Katja barely kept back her smile. “Of course,” she replied.

…

 

As true darkness fell, and the bells and the sheriff’s announcement faded out, Jack lay low in his bar. He ignored the invading army the first few times they tried to hammer down his door, but eventually, he gave up and unlocked it, a hangdog look on his face. He wordlessly pulled draft and whiskey for the Dark Corps thugs, who he knew would neither pay nor tip. Their raucous bluster soon dulled to a roar as the bar filled. He wasn’t leaving his bar, armistice or no armistice. Something was keeping him here; fatigue, intuition? Or the knowledge that if he fled, Ydris wouldn’t know where to find him?

Jack was polishing a perfectly clean glass for the umpteenth time, a muscle pulsing in his jaw, missing his barmaid and usual customers, when Halli scampered in from the storeroom. He’d freed her once the broken glass from the explosion had been cleaned up, and it looked like she had something to tell him.

“What?” he hissed, trying not to call attention to the fact that he was addressing the floor of his bar.

Halli yipped quietly and turned in a circle, then hopped towards the door, as if asking him to follow.

“We can’t just leave these miscreants here, they’ll follow,” Jack whispered.

Halli growled.

Jack risked a glance past the door to the back room. He caught a flash of red, and one of white. He stifled a gasp; Zelda and Izabella had returned home. And they weren’t alone.

Jack turned to the roomful of thugs and announced, as calmly as he could, “Last call!”

A harsh crackle of discontent rumbled through the room. “It’s barely nine o’clock!” someone yelled, words slurring with whiskey.

Jack’s thoughts jumped to the shotgun under the bar, the barrels of pilfered arms sitting right under his feet in the cellar. By the time he got to any of them he’d be in tatters, outgunned and outmanned.

“I’m sorry, rules are rules,” he said simply.

A massive Dark Corps man pushed his way to the bar and slammed his glass down on the scratched surface It shattered messily, but the man kept clutching its jagged stump; a weapon. “We’re making a new rule,” he snarled. “You close when we say.”

Halli whined at Jack’s feet. Jack willed himself not to look down at her, or back towards the room where his friends were hiding.

“Well?” the thug demanded. Then, he caught sight of Halli. “Maybe you’ll do as we say if we take a hostage-”

Salvation came just as the assailant was making a lunge for the fox. Madam Miranda clacked through the front doors- a usual sight made miraculous by circumstance- and declared “First round’s on the house at the Calico!”

The mob flooded out of Jack’s like the tide. Miranda sidestepped them gracefully and soon it was just she and Jack left, staring at each other across the bar.

“I spotted some friendlies breaking into your service entrance while I was… taking out some trash,” Miranda said wryly, by way of explanation. “I expect you’ll be wanting to see to them and the hostage- or rescue?- they brought with them. I can keep the teeming masses at bay for a little while. Seems there’s fewer of them every time I turn around.”

Jack shifted Halli into the crook of one arm and lifted his Eternally Spotless Glass to her. “Here’s to you, Madam. Deus ex Miranda,” he said with a smile.

“I’ll drink to that after we’ve rid our town of varmints,” she said with a wide smile. “Now take this- the fellow in your back room might need it, to regain his strength or come-to for interrogation.” She tossed Jack an amber vial filled with clear liquid.

Jack gave it an experimental sniff. Memories flooded his senses- long evenings in Ydris’ caravan, surrounded by drying herbs and mysterious bubbling carboys; dancing while haunting calliope music surrounded them, face buried in his fiance’s brocade-covered shoulder… Jack shook his head to clear it. _Less than a week._

“You sure this isn’t some of Ydris’ snake oil?” he asked, trying to mask the lump of yearning that had lodged in his throat.

Miranda nodded knowingly “Someone’s got to peddle the cure for what ails ye when he’s gone. This one’s same snake, different oil.”


	2. In which we fly out of the frying pan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roo deals with her injury and an uncomfortable revelation. Allison fights radiation poisoning and doesn't throw away her shot. Louisa deals with the consequences of her actions, Hal makes a daring escape, and Jacqueline is trapped. Clara finds a face from her past and must make a difficult choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for gunplay and shots fired!

A shock of pain ran up Roo’s leg, causing her to curl inwards with a moan, before she had time to process the fact that she was prostrate, scruffy, and moaning in front of her crush.

Linda, thankfully, was quick to respond. She grabbed Roo by the shoulders and dragged her away from the window, which she slammed shut and covered with a heavy drape. “Is someone after you?” she asked, frantically, running for a dipper full of water.

Roo shook her head and accepted the dipper gratefully. She made as face as she swallowed. “Got anything… stronger?” she growled.

Linda looked faintly aghast. “Is now really the time?”

Roo wrestled her flask from inside her duster and uncorked it with her teeth. “No time like the present.”

Linda pounced and snagged the flask before it reached Roo’s mouth. Roo lunged for it. She’d have gotten it back, too, if her ankle hadn’t spasmed again. She wound up with Linda pinning her to the ground and holding the flask aloft, crowing despite the gravity of the situation. Roo, somehow, forgot to mind too much that she’d been bested.

“We’re saving this for your wound,” Linda explained, jumping to her feet and bustling after pillows. “The Doc would be the right person to look at it, of course, but she’s being barraged by Dark Corps minions with holes in their arms. I’ve borrowed most of her library at some point, so I’ve picked up some basics.” She stuck her head out of a bedroom door. “What happened? Explosion? Bullet?”

Roo grimaced; the pain was already fading. She struggled to look at her ankle and was shocked to see the hem of her pants stained purple. The smell of kerosene confused her even more. “Chemicals of some sort,” she managed, and updated Linda on her doings since their meeting almost a day ago.

“-and I was climbing out of the attic above the general store-” she was finishing.

Linda pounded the table with sudden force. “I knew it,” she muttered.

“What?” Roo was sawing off the contaminated leg of her trousers, thanks to her hand—forged serrated dirk.

Linda kneaded the space between her eyebrows. “I had this dream last week,” she said quietly. “Willow, glowing purple. The same color as- let me show you.” She dropped the pillows and grabbed a leather-bound book from her bookcase, opening it to an illumination showing a seamonster ringed with purple light.

Roo jumped back. “Linda, Willow’s my _friend._ She wouldn’t endanger our town by playing with dark magic…” she glanced down at the remains of her trousers. They looked almost burnt where the purple kerosene had touched them.

“…would she?”

…

Allison paced around the machine once more, warily. The Mechanical and Automated Weaponry course during her ranger training had been thorough, but nothing could have prepared her for the massive rolling drill before her. It had the dimensions of a small house and the riveted plating of an ironclad ship of war.

 _Weakness._ She looked down the road to New Jorvik, where Zelda and Izabella had ridden off with the unconscious operator. She’d volunteered to destroy the machine, given her experience with explosives, while the other outlaws took the operator to safety. First, she’d freed the team of horses pulling the contraption. The zombie guards had kept on riding, silently, eerily. Now, with Cochise at a safe distance, she was eyeing the monstrosity, looking for a weakness.

Allison could feel her knees growing weak and her head starting to swim. The evil was radiating off the machine like heatwaves in the dead of summer. She stumbled and reached a hand out to catch herself. The machine’s metal shell was icy to the touch, despite the warmth of the day and the usual heat caused by combustion engines. What was its fuel? How did it move? Then- Allison’s hand brushed something that made her leap back in alarm. She reached the end of the machine, a narrow point with a fixture clearly made to accept a bit of some sort. It was made of a different kind of metal, which glowed an unnatural magenta. It burned hot.

Allison smiled through the onset of delirium. Shakily, she stumbled forward, as far as she dared. She looked up, towards New Jorvik and the dustcloud above the ambling guards. She pushed herself a few steps further, until she could breathe deeply without her throat closing up. _Who’d ‘a thunk? From Ranger to bandit to arm of justice once more._ Allison shrugged the rifle from its sheath across her back and brought it to her shoulder in one swift motion. _Steady…_ she squinted down the barrel, the small black pinpoint of weakness at the apex of the magenta metal swimming into focus.  Her finger danced on the trigger.

…

Louisa felt lightheaded, as if she was watching herself from above. She saw herself drop her gun and slide down the back of the roof above the livery, landing neatly in a haystack she’d made use of many times for more mundane purposes. She could hear the echo of the bell bouncing off the walls as she pelted, hellbent for leather, towards the closest shelter. Any shelter.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck. I just shot two people_. Granted, given her poorish eyesight and jangling nerves, she’d done no more than wound them- a hand, a grazed cheek- but she’d never even punched anyone before. Louisa was a pacifist, happy among her herds of prey-minded animals and in the arms of her Doctor, who had taken an oath to preserve all life. Lisa was exactly who she needed to see right now, but the men she’d injured had been taken there just moments ago. For now, she was on her own.

A commotion somewhere up ahead caused her to hurl herself into the nearest doorway, where she crouched in darkness. When the group of people passed, she exhaled in relief; just a family of New Jorvikers, heading for the hills with all they could carry. The armistice Dorian had brokered had begun, but the clock was ticking.

Louisa considered, for just a moment, slipping away with the furtive refugees. Thanks to her, Hal, and Roo they were armed, ready to defend themselves against Dark Corps or the beasts of night. By foot it was only an hour to Moorland’s ranch; from there, on Goldie, she’d be long gone by sunup. She’d return for Lisa once the smoke had cleared.

Smoke!

Something was burning. People were fleeing, and, turning, she saw it: the New Reformed Aideenist church was ablaze.

 

And someone, odds were, some Hal, was trapped up there.

…

Hal’s heart was hammering as he pressed his spine against the side of the belfry, trying to stay below the billowing smoke. They must have doused the timbers of the church in spirits before lighting it; he could feel the heat rising through the floorboards.

His mind began to turn frantically as breathing became ever harder. Serves me right for risking my hide, the thought ruefully, but this was no time for regret. His father and brother needed him; his ranch needed to be managed, the Stockmen had to be led. There were girls to woo, horses to break, mountains to climb…

 _Aha!_ Hal pulled his bandana over his nose and mouth and felt his way to the bell. Its rope hung down into the fire, but he was able to pull the thirty-odd feet of finest manila to his level and stamp it to a smoulder before too much harm was done. Enough to get close. Before he could regret his decision Hal had flung the tail of the rope down the back of the steeple and began his descent, opening himself to the fire and the shots fired below.

“Look! There ‘e is!” Hal rappelled sideways, around the corner to the other side of the steeple, as shots whizzed past. A flash of fire shot from a window before him; Hal slid ten feet down the rope, perilously close to the end. The ground still dangled a full story from the soles of his boots. A crackling from above him told him that the wood framing the bell was not long for this world.

 _Well, it’s been fun, old man,_ he smiled to himself. Bullets ricocheting from the stones above him suggested that the shooters had found him once more. With a mighty swing, Hal launched himself towards the distant roof of the Bank of New Sweden. _Our last adventure? Flying._

…

“I’ve brought you a prisoner!”

Clara projected her voice into the wide canyon to prevent ambush. She’d tied an unenthusiastic yet willing Jacqueline’s wrists with slipknots and gagged her loosely. Midnight, deserving of some rest, had been turned out at the last creek until called. Clara led Jacqueline from Missy’s saddle, but stopped the horse a respectful distance from where the trail opened into the encampment.

A heavy figure dropped down from the shelter of a clump of boulders, and was followed by two more. Dark Corps goons. _All the same,_ glowered Jacqueline. _Easy pickings with the element of surprise, but today, that’s not us._

“A source in New Jorvik told me I could join you in working for…your employer,” Clara said evenly. “To prove my commitment, I’ve brought you one of the bandits the New Jorvikers paid off to hunt you down.”

The guards exchanged looks. “Who’s spreading rumors about Mr. Sandoval down in the valley?” one snarled. “We don’t need any help. Our army’s sacking the town, our machines are digging up a king’s ransom in Drakonium as we speak. Our mega-drill should be halfway to your pitiful town.”

Clara made a dismissive noise. “That’s all well and good, but you might want a list of the insurgents before they scatter to the winds. Town’s chaos right now, as you’d have gathered. This one-” she jerked a thumb at Jacqueline- “was sent to gather information about your numbers and location and bring it back to the resistance.” Her emphasis on the final phrase caused the goons to exchange nervous looks.

“Guess we should lock her up,” one grumbled. Clara handed the rope tied to Jacqueline’s wrists over, and followed the group as they moved into the camp.

“And how about me?” she asked. “What can I do to be useful to the Mr. Sandoval?”

“You shoot?”

“You betcha.”

“Then take up station on the rocks back there; we could use a break. In fact-” the head goon shoved Jacqueline back at Clara, who had a hard time hiding her alarm- “take the prisoner over to the stockade first, then take up sentry duty. I need a drink.” The goons shambled off to what appeared to be a makeshift saloon, really no more than a shady lean-to.

While this had been transpiring, Jacqueline had been making observations. Campfires, long doused, littered the canyon floor. The earth around the lean-too and what looked to be a supply wagon was churned to mud- many feet had passed over it. And the stockade, in front of them, a tall fence of thorny branches and stone, looked like it had been quite the feat of primitive engineering. That kind of work took people, and lots of them.

 

“Talk to the other prisoners, and find out what they know,” Clara hissed in her ear. She somewhat doubted Jacqueline’s odds; even with freed hands and the power of speech, the stockade looked fairly impenetrable and there were no guarantees that the other prisoners would be amicable. Clara fully intended to act the traitor and play along with Dark Corps, as long as it was convenient.

 

Even if that was forever.

 

The look in Jacqueline’s eyes suggested that she knew something of this plot, but determination burned hot there, too. I’ve escaped worse, from better, she thought acidly.

The goons standing guard at the door to the stockade silently hefted the tree trunk serving as a bar to the door, and Clara shoved Jacqueline inside. Jacqueline fell to her knees inside, trapped.

Before the door closed, Clara caught sight of a face…

_Riding as the sun rose. Laughing and kissing. His calloused hand seizing hers under the table as the Diamondsong ranchands raised a toast along with the family._

“Clara?” Josh asked, voice cracked with thirst, from where he was tied, back to a stake.

The bar slammed across the door.

“Clara!” Josh called from behind the high, treacherous walls.

Clara, overwhelmed by the past, made no reply.   


	3. In which there are bears, booze, and bullets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoe, Ronja, Crystal, and Eden cause a very large explosion and a stampede. Jack, Zelda, and Izabella learn something horrible. Dorian's armistice ends too soon, and things don't look so good for the lot of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for guns, as per usual in this section

Zoe, Ronja, Eden, and Crystal, all stony silent, picked their way on horseback down a steep deer trail, into the pit. The opposite wall threw a deep shadow over their descent, and the grinding of machinery and noises of anxious horses covered their hoofbeats.

When they got to the shale skree at the bottom of the slope, Zoe turned to look at Ronja. “Ready for the diversion?”

Ronja flashed a bright smile in the darkness. “Born ready. Take care of Night, yeah?” Her hand travelled protectively and subconsciously down her gelding’s neck.

Crystal took Night’s reins. “He’s in good hands,” she said softly.

Ronja leapt to the ground and dug a great bulky object from her saddlebag. “Watch and learn, wenches.”

“We’ve got your back,” Zoe promised, hefting her rifle. Crystal and Eden had also been given guns, but both were clutching their own knives with far more confidence.

With a curt nod, Ronja melted into the darkness. All the other women could see was a shadow sliding down the slope, getting smaller and smaller until, suddenly, a bear leapt into the light of the mining operation.

The bear- _was_ it a bear?- made an ungodly roaring sound, and started loping towards a pen holding a milling herd of horses. With one swipe of its hairy paw, the gate was open and the horses freed. The animals toiling at the millstone and the sluiceways tossed their heads, eyes showing white in the light of the oil lanterns. They wanted no part of this bear, albeit a clumsy one.

“What’s going on? Who goes there?” A guardhouse hidden in the mechanical maze burst open, and a slender woman with a severe face and a black ponytail stormed out, loading a shotgun as she went. “If you’re that infernal spy patrol Willow warned of..”

The bear appeared from behind a storehouse, and let out a growl.

The severe woman blanched and backed towards the shelter of her guardhouse. “When they said _rustle horses_ they didn’t mention a thing about rabid bears.” The bear melted back into the shadows. Then her eyes narrowed, then she shouted, “Who’s out there?” She waited a moment.

Zoe chose that tense moment to lift her firearm to her shoulder in one swift motion and fire into the night, aiming into the hillside across the pit from their hiding place. A rockslide of no great magnitude drowned out the mechanical sounds of the mine for a minute. In the silence that followed, Zoe murmured to Crystal and Eden, “Now watch.”

The severe woman, gun, at the ready, tore out into the night, jumping at shadows, clearly still fearing the bear. But something was important enough to risk a mauling; Zoe, Crystal, and Eden followed her trajectory as she pelted through the lines of panicked horses and rumbling equipment towards a shack at the edge of the pit. It looked unassuming, but it was encircled by barbed wire and what looked like a moat.

“There! Move now,” Zoe ordered. Eden and Crystal, with Night in tow, galloped down the slope, knives bared. They fell into the chaos of frightened horses and leapt into action, cutting the ropes and harnesses that held the horses captive. Eden recognized a few of her family’s roping horses, a mare belonging to the Diamondsongs that’d gone missing over a month ago. Crystal saw horses belonging to regulars at Bluenight’s, whose blazes and stars she petted daily on her way outside to fetch water. The familiar markings flashed around her as the horses bolted, free at last. The missing herds of New Jorvik had been found.

Ronja, under the mayor’s bearskin coat, had crept up behind Jessica and let out her best approximation of a rabid bear’s growl. Jessica jumped into the air with a squawk but kept moving towards the shack, fumbling at a string around her neck. _The key,_ Zoe thought, squinting through the milling shadows. Sure enough, Jessica yanked a key from around her neck and rammed it into the lock set into the shack’s door. She turned it frantically, shakily, and finally, swung the door open, revealing a large stone, pulsing with light and scratched all over with runes.

“Gotcha, witch,” Zoe smiled, and sent a bullet into the core of the glowing rock.

It was at that moment that Ronja pounced, pushing Jessica into the moat, just in case she had any designs on stopping the implosion of the GED/Dark Corps Drakonium mine. Ronja herself rolled clear of the moat just in time to dodge a chunk of the stone hurtling from the remains of the shack. She heard muted concussions sounding from inside the machinery around her, and knew it was time to leave. She stood, whistled for Night, and, after a moment’s thought, slung the bear coat over her shoulders. It had already been useful twice.

Night galloped up and Ronja swung aboard. They joined Zoe, Eden, and Crystal in cutting the last of the horses free. A herd hundreds strong was now loose in the pit and desperate to avoid the magic and machinery that had previously held them captive.

“Eden, lead them off!” boomed Zoe over the pandemonium. “I’ll ride drag.”

Eden didn’t need to be told twice. She spurred Genesis towards a clump of Moorland horses that knew her voice, and cut them off, circling them back into the herd. When they’d turned towards the shale slope and its path, she whooped for Crystal and Ronja to cut in, funnelling the horses up the slope by shooting at the ground on the other side. Eden kept pace alongside the leaders, keeping Genesis a few paces behind them in case they wheeled.

Zoe watched as the last few horses made their way up the trail, and cast one last look back down into the smoking ruins of the pit before following the herd. One part of her wished that she could’ve seen the stone for herself; something with that much attraction and ancient magic came along only once in one’s life. But the other part of her knew that no good came from fucking with forces that no human was meant to control; she was fortunate that she and her companions had only glimpsed the terrifying power of the underworld. 

…

Jack locked every bolt on the door to his back room before he dared light a candle and meet the eyes of Izabella and Zelda. The bespectacled stranger on the ground was out cold for the time being.

“Doc Lisa’s swarmed with the enemy right now,” Izabella said, voice wavering. “We’re sorry for endangering you, but he’s been poisoned by that thing they’re mining.”

Zelda was much calmer. “If we can wake him, he can tell us their plan and help us protect the town from whatever that thing is,” she stated.

Jack sighed and pulled a bottle of his highest-proof moonshine from a crate marked “biscuits.” He uncorked it and held it to the redhead’s lips. “Didn’t you two know that Dorian’s bartered an hour’s respite from the fighting? You should take him and run.”

Zelda shook her head stubbornly. “Not when there’s hope. This kid might be the key to winning New Jorvik back. Plus, you’re still here.”

Jack rolled his eyes, “And I regret it more with every passing-”

The stranger’s eyes fluttered. His head, which was resting in Izabella’s lap, snapped up and he would have let out a yell had not Izabella gently covered his mouth. “Shhh, we’re trying to help you,” she said softly.

He looked around frantically, but seemed to lack the energy to fight. He lay back down, though his eyes remained alert.

“We rescued you from that Dark Corps drill,” Izabella explained. “Anything you can tell up about it will help save us all.” She experimentally removed her hand from his lips- which were nice lips, if she took the time to consider them. Under his deathly pallor he really was a handsome fellow. “Do you have a name?” She asked, hoping to ease him into speech.

“Syntax,” he whispered. “They promised me five years’ wages if I could finish their drill for them and operate it. I had no idea-” he paused for breath- “that they’d be mining Drakonium with it.”

“Drakonium? Never heard of it,” Jack interjected.

“Only exists in two places on earth,” Syntax countered. “Some island in the North Sea and here, under New Jorvik county. They say it’s drawn to the surface by belief.”

“Belief?” snorted Zelda. Izabella shot she and Jack a dirty _be nice_ look.

Syntax tried to nod. Izabella helped him sit up. “Go on,” she said encouragingly.

“Belief in this subterranean underworld,” Syntax continued. “Some primitive religious mubo-jumbo, no doubt. Or so I thought. But something’s wrong with Drakonium. It’s incredibly powerful. It can… compel people and animals to do what you ask. It robs them of their will to live, if they’re exposed long enough.” He shook his head. “I watched the hired men who guarded the drill drop, one by one, and get replaced by men who slowly turned into walking corpses. If they didn’t become violently sick first. Sandoval promised me I’d be safe in the drill’s cockpit. Said it was insulated by a special metal. Turns out, he said that to trap me there, and I started feeling the effects of the Drakonium too.” He smiled weakly up at Izabella. “I’d have died if you hadn’t saved me.”

Jack stifled the urge to roll his eyes. Zelda was nodding along. “We left one of our friends to destroy the drill. You’re safe from it now. But please, tell us, where were you taking it? Where were they going to use it?”

Syntax gulped. “Where are we?” he asked, suddenly.

Izabella, Jack, and Zelda exchanged looks. “New Jorvik City. Why?” Jack said carefully.

Syntax groaned. “The motherlode is right beneath this town,” Syntax said. “Mr. Sandoval and Dark Corps will do anything- anything- to get rid of the people here and claim it as their own. Drill or no drill, they’re taking New Jorvik by force. And the fewer people left to get in their way, the better.” He met Izabella’s eyes, then Jack’s. “Did you say they’re letting people leave? I wouldn’t trust them. They don’t want witnesses.”

Zelda sprang to her feet. “Dorian,” she breathed.

…

Dorian stood in the shadows of the Sheriff’s station’s porch, Sabine cuffed to railing and Katja within arm’s reach. People were rushing through the streets, knowing that they had mere minutes left before the peace was over. Dorian dared not move; even when a mob of Rangers set fire to the church. Even when it looked like a riot was going to break out at Jack’s. Even when a firefight had broken out in some distant alley. He had one gun lazily trained on Katja, and he knew the gesture was mutual. One false move and he’d be the one chained to the post, watching New Jorvik fall into chaos.

“Five minutes,” Katja said, boredom oozing in her voice. “Let’s hope your citizens have run fast enough to avoid getting mistaken for insurgents.”

“When they’re beyond the city limits, they’re free,” Dorian said guardedly. “Your beef is with us, here, now. You have nothing to gain from hunting down the innocents who’ve fled.” He knew that his sister, Rebeca, and her child were among the people who’d ran for the hill country. He prayed that Katja was bluffing.

“Three minutes,” Katja said.

“How about you, Sheriff?” spat Sabine. “Aren’t you going to run?”

Dorian shook his head. “Whatever you have planned for me, for this town, I’ll stick around the see it.” He also prayed that his team of sharpshooters hadn’t gone too far or met with harm; that somewhere, the rooftop shadows he’d observed would materialize into Roo or Zelda or Allison.

“I’m tired of waiting!” announced Katja. She aimed her pistol away from Dorian and into the sky, she fired three times, stopping the fleeing townsfolk in their tracks.

“Time’s up,” she bellowed. “I suggest those of you still here return to your homes. Go quietly and it might buy you some time. The key?” Rangers and goons were now streaming out into the street from the Calico, forming lines in front of the station. Dorian, helpless, handed over the key, and Katja freed Sabine in an instant.

“Martial law reigns once more!” Announced Sabine. “Section V, please go investigate what’s taking the drill so long to get here…” her orders faded as Dorian felt a huge hand clamp down on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry Sheriff, we’ll find you useful later on,” Katja smiled acidly. “Rob? Take him to the cell. And when you’re done, please roll out the Gatling gun. I have a feeling some of these yokels won’t come quietly.”


	4. In which we kill our darlings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW for lots of gun violence, some blood, and swearing!!!
> 
> While Hal is rescued by a surprising helpmeet, things are grim for pretty much everyone else. Except Roo. She gets a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW! Guns!

_Bang!_

The last rider in the line went down, seemingly grateful for the respite. Darko and Nic Stoneground wheeled their horses around almost in time to see-

 _Bang!_ The second henchman clutched his gun hand to his chest. His horse beneath him danced frantically before taking off down the slope towards the river.

“Nice one,” Esmeralda said grudgingly, shouldering her rifle for another shot. “For a librarian.”

 _Bang!_ The third-to-last rider, burdened with a drill bit, toppled from his horse, which promptly fled. Darko leapt from his saddle and, pushing the prone man before him as a human shield against hypothetical fire, began unbuckling the bit to carry himself.

“None too shabby yourself, ” Carina rejoindered. The fourth henchman was fleeing pell-mell upslope; Carina followed him in her sights before lowering the barrel of her gun. “For a reprobate. Let that one run; and let’s run, too.”

Esmeralda tucked her rifle under an arm and circled Charra towards the trail. “Knew you’d go soft in the end. The redhead’s mine!” With a bloodcurdling whoop, she spurred her mare towards the men on the hill. Carina and Brightstar were hot on her heels.

Both remaining men were clearly armed, but the heavy drillbits incapacitated them.

“Ride for New Jorvik!” Darko barked to Nic. When the latter took a moment to tighten the bit to his chest, Darko managed to yank a pocket Derringer from his boot. “I said GO.”

Despite the pounding of their horses’ hooves, Esmeralda and Carina could tell precisely what was going on here.

“Gotcha,” Esmeralda grinned.

Nic backed his mount up a pace. “Methinks this is the end of the line for you, Darko,” he said lazily.

“Fuck it,” Darko hissed, swinging with great trepidation into his saddle. “You’re not worth the bullet. But-” _Bang!_ A fourth blast shattered the morning and Nic’s shoulder went slack. A crimson plume painted itself slowly down his arm.

Carina bit back a scream and crouched lower on Brightstar’s neck, willing him to go faster. Esmeralda, less inclined to histrionics, raised her rifle to her shoulder, let all outside stimuli fade out, and shot for the strap holding the drillbit to Darko’s chest.

…

Hal expected the following: stone. Broken bones. The taste of iron in his mouth. Unfathomable pain. Instead, he landed with a thump on something pliable and musty smelling.

 _Well then_.

The temperature from the inferno he had just fled was already fading out behind him, and he was being borne away from it in a wagon; _that_ he could deduce from the jostling and clatter of running hooves.

“How-” he tried to demand of the black-clad figure in the driver’s seat.

Madame Miranda turned around and gave him her best showbiz smile. “I’m an opportunist. And one good turn deserves another.” A volley of buckshot hit a wall just above them. “Now, I have a wagon full of drugged thugs and half the Jorvik Rangers this side of the Big Silversong in hot pursuit. Care to chip in?”

“Gladly.” Hal painfully pulled his shotgun out from beneath him and shakily aimed out the back. He was just in time to see a flaming bird’s nest of timbers from the church fall, barring the progress of the Rangers behind them. He shot once for effect.

“Where you heading?”

“Dunno, quite,” Miranda said, expertly reining the team between two narrow warehouses and out onto the prairie. “Jamie’s been driving these lovely fellows out on their desert picnics so far, but a riot broke out at the smithy and he needed to do some damage control. Roo’s missing, by the way.” She frowned, then brightened, as if making pleasant conversation with a wealthy customer in the Calico’s front parlor. “Say, you’re one of those mountain-man types. Take us to the wilderness, Mr. Northwell.”

Hal clambered over the bodies- a few of which emitted muted groans- to sit on the buckboard. “So you’re just dumping them outside town?”

Miranda shrugged. “Can’t go too far; another load will be ready in two hours, if things continue apace.”

Hal’s jaw dropped. “I’d heard your girls were good. But…” he did some quick ciphering. “Forty men? Drugged and bound and left for the vultures in less than twenty-four hours? I’m astonished.”

Miranda inclined her head humbly. “A nod to Antony and Cleopatra. We’ll make fifty by sunup, if you know a good place.”

Hal took the reins. “I think I know just the place…”

…

“Now aren’t you glad you’re sober for this?”

“No.” Roo was trying hard to sulk, but it was difficult when the girl of her dreams, all rosewater and green silk, was rinsing her ankle with whiskey (“a surprisingly potent disinfectant,” in Linda’s words). It stung horrifically, but Roo was used to biting back pain and keeping on keeping on. Plus, this was worth it.

Linda shot her a look. “I’ll give your flask back when this is over. _If_ it’s ever over.”

Roo shuddered and leaned back, gathering energy for the one last task she needed to complete before she’d allow herself back here to confess to Linda how she really felt. “So, you coming with me?”

Linda set her jaw. “I won’t send you out there alone.”

In ten minutes’ time, they were standing at the door leading to the street. Distant gunfire could be heard, but the road between Linda’s house and the General Store was quiet as the tomb.

“Here goes,” Linda said bravely.

Roo gulped and said nothing. Confronting one of her best-

Suddenly, Linda had taken her face in both hands and gently laid a kiss right on her chapped lips. Roo was thunderstruck.

“I’ll give you your flask back, and ask you over to dinner,” Linda said quietly. Her eyes were the most intense shade of golden brown Roo had ever seen.

“I’d like that,” Roo managed, and seizing Linda’s hand charged out into the dawn.

…

  _The stables._

The fire was now spreading from the church; Louisa knew it was only a matter of time before it caught the haystacks behind the livery stable she had just vacated. That stable was full of horses.

Turning around, blowing her cover, Louisa sprinted towards the huge double doors. Frightened whinnies echoed from inside.

 _Things are dire. Our sharpshooters have disappeared, our town is burning, our Sheriff is in jail, our spies are god-knows-where._ Louisa ducked a flailing hoof and wrenched open a stall door. The horse inside burst out, eyes rolling, but she was already moving on, freeing the horses one by one.

 _But there’s hope. The Calico girls are whittling away at the enemy’s numbers. The bounty hunters might still find something that could help us. And that weird storm’s blown over. And Lisa’s safe._ A sizzling alerted Louisa to the fact that her worst fears were now reality; a molten drop of tar from the roof landed on her hand, scorching it, as she freed the last of the horses. The roof was ablaze.

“You!” A dim shape, followed by more, materialized through the smoke. Louisa felt herself being tackled and dragged out into the street. The smoke she’d inhaled made her woozy, almost as if she were watching herself from above.

“Horse rustler!” someone shouted. Louisa felt a gloved fist raise her chin and blinked up into a pale white face wearing a look of pure evil. _Katja._

Katja was smiling coldly. “Skulking about sabotaging the civilizing efforts of Dark Corps?” she tsked. “Thankfully we’ve been looking for someone like you. The Sheriff has a duel to fight today- and he needs a willing rebel to be his second.”

Louisa’s blood ran cold.

…

The drill exploded with a boom so deep it could be felt more than heard. It knocked the retreating Allison off her feet; she stumbled back upright and kept running. She felt the flames searing the back of her neck, but refused to look back. _Rangers don’t look back._

Cochise appeared out of nowhere, and Allison put out a hand to seize the saddlehorn and mechanically propel herself into a sitting position- another throwback to her Ranger training. Now if we can just get back to town… now if there’s only a town left to get back to…

The rope came from nowhere. It settled around her torso and pulled tight before her Drakonium-addled mind had time to wrap its head around what was happening. Cochise slid to a stop; she was surrounded by New Jorvik Rangers.

“Nice shooting, but you’re outgunned,” grinned one cruelly as he jerked the rope that held her. “We may be down a drill, but that’s replaceable. Just like you.”

Allison cringed away as the lead Ranger spat a stream of tobacco in her direction. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Alonso, staring at her, stricken.

…

Jacqueline had been busy.

As night turned into day, she furtively cut the various brigands and outlaws held captive in the stockade free. Most she knew from the Rogues’ Gallery, though some- like the towheaded cowboy who seemed to know Clara- were unfamiliar. They told her things; where the meetings between Kembell and the mysterious Mr. Sandoval were conducted in the encampment; where incriminating documents might be found. She plucked a desert rose from the dusty ground and pressed it in her pocketbook. She noted the lay of the land and the way water ran when she let it leak from her canteen.

“The fuck’re you wasting that for?”

Clara’s cowboy was standing over her, looking interested but not hostile.

“There’s gotta be a drainage system somewhere in this stockade,” Jacqueline explained. “For rain and… you know.” She nodded to the ditches dug for bodily excretions along the perimeter. Though a rough structure, the builders of the stockade had clearly meant to use it for a long period of time. It had functioning latrines, with the merest trickle of water helping to wash things away. “Anyway, it’s the weak spot of any fortress-”

“Name’s Josh,” the cowboy cut her off. “And you won’t need to climb through no drainage ditches to break outta here.”

Jacqueline cocked her head. “Then how?”

“Clara’ll spring us,” he said simply.

“While I admire your faith in humanity, I have a feeling our mutual friend has hitched her start to Dark Corps’ wagon,” Jacqueline replied wryly. “I’m not willing to stake my life on the whims of an outlaw. Because I am one.”

Across the encampment, Clara was finishing her rotation as sentry. The dew had settled on the shoulders of her duster, but she was wide awake, her mind in turmoil.

It had been so easy to take Willow up on her offer before. Handing Jacqueline over hadn’t been a moral hang-up; getting stabbed in the back just deserts for being an outlaw. Clara would expect nothing less of the women she pitched her tent with, even after months of comradery and shared missions. That was the risk you took when you crossed over to the wrong side of the law. And though Jacqueline was cunning and good at heart, Clara knew that she was also well aware of the risks of her profession.

But _Josh._ Just thinking about the look on his face sucker-punched Clara something fierce. He was one of the best people she’d ever met, the kind that sweet-talked horses in public and laughed with delight at starry skies and fireflies. There’d been a time when he was her best and only friend- just before she ran away to become a highwayman. He didn’t deserve this.

And Sandoval or no, Clara was going to save him. Jacqueline too. And the rest of the prisoners up here in the hills. Fuck it, they were going to blow this stronghold sky-high before the sun had cleared the mountaintops.

…

Dorian had slept fitfully for a few hours. He only felt safe sleeping because the burly guardsman had kind eyes. Eyes that had stared down from a poster on Dorian’s office wall (“WANTED: Rob Seastone, Smuggler and Horse Rustler”) for months.

“I’d spring you if it didn’t mean my neck,” Rob had said softly as he snuffed the light outside of Dorian’s cell. “We all know you’re good people. But they took me for their brute squad in exchange for the other outlaws’ lives. They’d have been mowed down otherwise- and might still be, if I don’t toe the line.”

Now dawn’s rosy fingers were clawing their way through the bars on the high window. Rob slid a tray of bread and water through the cell’s grating and settled back to watch Dorian eat. He didn’t get much of a show; Dorian gulped the water, conscious of Rob’s gaze, and pushed the bread away.

“What’s their plan for me?” he asked in a monotone.

Rob sighed. “Duel,” he said. “High noon.”

“Who’m I shooting at?” Dorian asked.

Rob met his eyes. “General Katja. She’s merciless.”

...

Zelda emerged from the window of the Moorland mansion in town, pale and drawn but determined. Justin had been nowhere to be found, which troubled her, but she had been able to make contact with his imposing grandmother. The Baroness, as she was still called, was armed to the teeth and very informative. She'd let Zelda know that Hal, Roo, and Louisa had armed the entire town before their collective disappearance. 

"Those of us that are still here are just awaiting the signal to attack," she'd said through thin lips.

"The signal?" Zelda asked, dubious.

The Baroness nodded sagely. "When the Gatling gun begins its fire, we all shoot to kill." 


	5. In which the stars align

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A showdown ensues. TW for violence and gunplay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all who have read this far!!! TW for guns on this chapter, of course

Syntax awoke to see Izabella stropping a knife with rapid, merciless strokes, the picture of efficiency. When she turned and met his eyes, though, the coldness in hers melted away.

“I feel like I’m keeping you from something important,” he mumbled.

Izabella rose to her feet. “Right now, you’re our only link to the inner workings of Dark Corps. I’ve not heard from Allison or Roo for twelve hours, and Zelda’s not back yet. None of the riders who went into the mountains are back, and all we have of the diplomats’ plan is ‘shoot like hell if they fire first.’ So you’re my something important.”

Syntax tried to get out of bed, but Izabella put a soothing hand on his chest and gently pressed him back down. “Jack’s busy with more tough _customers_ up front, so we have to stay here. But please, tell me where they were going to use that drill.”

Syntax sighed, resigned. “The richest vein of Drakonium lies beneath the Aideenist church- or what used to be the Aideenist church, anyway. I seem to remember it burning when you smuggled me through town. That’s where they’ll begin their excavation, but it’ll soon start toppling buildings across town- seismic tremors, that sort of thing. There’s no room in this plan for sparing lives. We need to get out.”

The rabble in the bar suddenly swelled to a roar. Izabella and Syntax exchanged looks and rushed silently to the door, pressing their ears to its rough surface.

…

Jack took a step back as Marshal Sabine and Katja strode into the bar, followed by a coterie of rageful-looking Rangers and henchmen. They were dragging a semiconscious Allison and Louisa in their midst. Soon, someone shoved a chained Dorian through the door. All three were pushed up against the bar, as if on show for the assembled hordes. Jack fought the impulse to reach out and touch the shoulders of each of them; he was only feet away, but frozen against his will.

“They destroyed our drill!” Katja screamed. “These insurgents, these degenerates, these _bastards_ blasted our mega-drill to Pandoria!” The crowd erupted in angry yells; it took a wall of guards blocking the three rebels to keep the army from taking out their anger on them.

“Let them be,” Sabine interjected. “Come noon, the Sheriff’ll have one last chance to lay down his life for his town.” She turned a sardonic smile on Dorian. “Isn’t that what you want, Sheriff Wolf? A chance to play the martyr? No?” Dorian remained silent. “What about if one of your little girls stands in for the General?” Sabine smiled. “That’s right. Our disgraced Ranger here just got promoted. General Katja will be her second.”

An appreciative gasp welled up from the crowd. This was getting good.

…

Crystal had never been a part of a cattle drive before. Eden and Ronja handled the hundred-strong horses with the ease of experience, and Zoe could bend any living creature to her will, from rattlesnake to delinquent teenager, without batting an eye. But for Crystal, this was all new.

She rode swing on the herd, ranging up and down the left flank and chasing down strays with Thunderhoof. If she closed her eyes and ignored the acrid smell of smoke from the direction of town, she could almost pretend it was a normal morning on the prairie. Then-

Ronja whistled shrilly from her position at the right flank, and Eden expertly slowed the herd. The four women met up at the head of their teeming mob.

“Did you hear that?” Ronja demanded, once everyone was within earshot.

“…No?” Eden had been loving the temporary respite of working the herd, letting her mind focus on the one thing she knew like the inside of her eyelids. She hadn’t noticed any weird noises.

“Listen.” Ronja held up a hand. Silence.

Then, they all heard it.

A massive explosion, coming from town. Only a few short and smoky miles separated them from the edge of New Jorvik.

“We’re too late,” Zoe said grimly. “The mining’s begun.”

Ronja shook her head furiously. “Not if we stampede.”

…

Esmeralda’s bullet sliced the leather strap holding the prized bit to Darko’s chest. She saw him drop down low in his saddle, unhurt but burdened, clutching the piece of machinery, but he kept his seat.

 _He’s good. But not good enough._ Charra was eating up the ground between them in effortless strides, unfettered by the extra weight. Darko turned and, for the first time, a light of recognition dawned in his eyes. Esmeralda could almost hear him mouth _You._

“Me,” she said under her breath, and urged Charra to go faster.

The horses were climbing now, leaping scrub oak and pinon pine, coats flecked in lather. Esmeralda knew that sooner or later they would run out of ground.

But Darko refused to give up. She was now close enough to count the rowels on his spurs, but he kept surging forward. The horses’ hooves hit hard rock; they were racing along the ridge now, beyond the timberline, where eagles flew. Finally, in a sickening drop, the basalt disappeared before them into thin air. Darko’s horse reared back in alarm, sending a cascade of stones down the cliff face. He was trapped; Esmeralda was blocking his only escape.

“It’s like déjà vu, all over again,” Darko snarled, but a smile was flirting around his lips. “Only I seem to remember it the other way around.”

“Come quietly and I’ll spare your pretty face,” Esmeralda offered, condescendingly. She held a pistol loosely in her hand.

“If you like it so much, come and get it,” he grinned, and in a moment she’d seen coming from a mile away, Darko spurred his horse down over the lip of the cliff, just as she’d done not so far from here just three days ago. _Or was it two?_ It didn’t matter; Charra’s hooves hit the near-vertical trail before Esmeralda even registered that she’d given the command to follow.

…

Roo and Linda burst through the door to the General Store to find Willow neatly folding underclothes into a steamer trunk. As if the town around her weren’t crumbling and burning.

“So it’s true,” Roo said raggedly, levelling her favorite shotgun at Willow’s chest.

Willow put a hand to her throat primly. “Whatever can you mean? I’ve been planning my move to the island of Jorvik for years now!” A knowing smile wiped away the innocent façade. “I just didn’t happen to let _you_ in on the secret.”

“You sold New Jorvik to Dark Corps for a transatlantic fare?” Roo cried in disbelief.

“No, no, no. I _came_ here to sell New Jorvik to Dark Corps,” Willow said impatiently, going back to her packing. “You won’t shoot me, Freja. Mr Sandoval employed me as an undercover operative years ago to report to him about the town and its connection to Pandoric energy. Now that his forces have it well in hand, my work here is done. Please turn the sign to ‘Closed’ when you leave.”

Roo found herself blinking back tears of disbelief. She’d though Willow was one of her best friends; a confidant, witty and kind, and- she clenched her teeth and took aim once more. “People have died because of you. I’ll probably hang because of you.”

Willow shrugged and shut her trunk with a snap. “Unfortunately, I’ve already washed my hands of this place. You’ve been fun, Roo, but I’m going home.” She pulled out her pocketwatch and glanced at its face. “Just as soon as the spectacle’s over. Must make sure loose ends are tied up. You understand.” She dangled the watch before Roo’s eyes: 11:50.

“Roo!” Linda’s voice cut through the fog of anger and confusion swirling in Freja’s head. Linda had been hanging back, but now she’d laid a hand on the small of her back and was resolutely beside her. “It’s up to you whether or not to let her live,” Linda whispered urgently. “Only you can make that decision. But time is running out; there’s one place you _need_ to be.”

Roo spat on the ground at Willow’s feet. “Aideen with you,” she snarled, and turned and ran out into the street.

…

The first blast of dynamite had opened up a pool-hall-sized wound in the street

The cuffs fell from Dorian’s hands, leaving his wrists chafed raw. A pistol was thrust into his hand. He could feel Allison’s back pressed to his; he could see Louisa standing shakily ten paces before him, a sacrificial lamb set to avenge his inevitable demise.

“Shame the church bell’s out of commission,” Marshal Sabine said lazily from where she leaned in the shade of the Sheriff’s office porch. “It would have added such… drama.”

“Ten paces,” Katja said lightly from where she stood in front of Allison. “Then turn. Whoever shoots first, likely lives. If either of you aim wide, though, our friends over there on the Gatling will open fire on the whole town. Haven’t yet reckoned-” here she broke into a sarcastic drawl- “how we’re a-gonna’ settle up after that. Though my trigger finger’s reeeal itchy.” She popped a finger pistol in Louisa’s direction.

“You know I feel only the highest respect for you and your motivations,” Dorian whispered to Allison. “Please don’t hold your fire.”

“You’re a good man, Sheriff,” Allison replied. “Aim true. And pray.”

They took their first step apart.

…

The streets were crowded with Rangers and henchmen intent on the bloodletting. Their eyes were not trained on the rooftops, and that was a good thing; Roo, Izabella, and Zelda, though running along different rooves, caught sight of one another just as Dorian and Allison began their paces.

Zelda stood on the bank roof, over the marble façade that sheltered the Gatling gun. It was three stories straight down, but if she could make it…

Across the street, Izabella and Roo locked eyes from either side of River street. They knew what they had to do.

…

_Four steps. Five._

A bead of sweat rolled down Allison’s nose.

_Six._

Her trigger finger was well-trained enough not to tremble, but she had to fight the impulse.

_Seven. Eight._

Dorian’s breath came quickly. His mind was spinning through every possible option, but coming up blank every time he exhaled. People will die. I will die.

_Nine._

Dorian looked t his left and caught the eyes of Rob, his jailer. Rob looked tense; he gave Dorian a slow nod, holding his eyes.

_Ten._

Dorian was looking into Louisa’s eyes now. She gave him a shaky smile, as if everything was going to be okay. Louisa was saying something, but for some reason, Dorian couldn’t hear it.

The Gatling gun was firing, but nobody was falling. Heads whipped round in confusion, and Dorian, Louisa, and Allison recognized Zelda at the controls, firing madly into the sky. She was flanked by the prone forms of the erstwhile guards, taken down by bullets from Izabella and Roo.

Now, Dorian could tell what Louisa had been saying:

“GET DOWN!”

Allison, Dorian, and Louisa dropped to the ground as weapons blossomed from doors and windows throughout town. The signal had been heard, loud and clear, and New Jorvik had turned out en masse to defend itself.

Zelda held her fire, leaving the town in silence and the Dark Corps army surrounded.

“Drop your guns,” Dorian had the presence of mind to say, from laying flat on his back in the middle of main street. He took a moment to appreciate the absurdity of his situation.

“Never,” Katja hissed under her breath.

The clatter of hooves and scream of steel wheels momentarily distracted the assembled masses from the standoff. A buckboard wagon filled to bursting with dust-covered people careened around a corner, back from the hinterlands.

“We late for the party?” Madame Miranda asked, drawing her team up short of main street.

Hal motioned for the gang of criminals and detainees- including Jacqueline and Clara- to fan out, blocking the bridge across the Big Silversong. It had been pure serendipity that they’d accidentally rendezvoused just down the mountain from the Dark Corps encampment. Clara had staged a jailbreak as the sun rose, and Jacqueline and Josh had readied the inmates to overpower their captors once freed. They’d been marching for New Jorvik when Hal had spotted them, after helping Miranda deposit their load of drugged henchmen in a nearby draw. Now, the river flowed strong, threatening to jump its banks swelled as it was with runoff from the dark storm.

The only possible retreat towards civilization was across the railroad trestle South of town.

“You’re outgunned and outmanned. And outwomaned,” Hal announced. “Drop. Your. Weapons.”

Katja and Sabine flashed a look between them, and then, once more, all hell broke loose.

…

 _Perhaps we will never know,_ Carina later wrote in her account of the Dark Corps Incident, _who fired first. The bullet could have come from anywhere, and lodged itself in the head of an outraged taxidermy elk on the back wall of Jack’s bar. So began the largest and deadliest firefight in the annals of New Jorvik history._

_The townsfolk were largely barricaded in their homes, but the handful of rebels left in the open were without cover and vulnerable. Sheriff Wolf, Allison, and Louisa were able to run for cover behind the Gatling gun, now wielded as a deterrent by Zelda. Izabella and Roo acted as snipers from the roof, and helped to cover for the fighters on the bridge._

_Katja and Marshal Sabine called for their forces to beat a deadly retreat, firing indiscriminately as they passed through town. They were, of course, aiming for the bridge over the Big Silversong, which was also the weakest point in New Jorvik’s defences. Jacqueline, Hal, Miranda, and Clara distinguished themselves by their bravery in the face on an onslaught, and Jack risked his life in ferrying arms and ammunition to them and their companions when they were in danger of running out. They would have been overpowered by the sheer concentrated force of the Dark Corps regiment were it not for the stampede._

_The riders swept in from the north with a running herd hundreds strong, keeping it under just enough control to direct its leaders straight for the bridge. Their whoops alerted the defenders on the bridge to their coming, and in an instant the retreating Dark Corps pugilists found that their targets had all dived for the river. Many Corps employees fled before the herd, and were hamstrung by well-aimed bullets from merciful gunmen. Others were lost beneath the churning hooves. Only a few escaped without incident, and these were the leaders._

_…_

General Katja and Marshal Sabine, followed by a cluster of Rangers joined Willow at the deserted railway depot. Willow stood primly next to her steamer trunk, in a ribboned hat.

“The fuck have you been?” spat Sabine, peering anxiously down the track.

“A lady needn’t shoot to get what she wants,” Willow said with a withering sneer. She opened the lid of the trunk a crack to reveal the hunched form of an unconscious person. “Spiked lemonade from my store was enough for this one. Mr. Sandoval will be pleased to at least gain access to his grandson from this debacle.”

“There!” Katja pointed triumphantly down the track to where a black column of smoke was threading its way through the hills. “Sandoval’s just in time.”

“What of Darko and Jessica?” Sabine asked. “I’ve not had word from either of them for days.”

Willow shrugged. “Neither of them answered my signals this morning. I take it they’ve been… eliminated.”

Katja nodded curtly. “Inevitable casualties. We’ll replace them once we’ve wiped the dust of this barbaric wasteland from our boots.”

…

Crystal had clung to Thunderhoof’s neck as the stampede neared the bridge, and surged across as one. She reined her horse back as the herd streamed on, avoiding the crossfire over Main street. That’s when she saw the train approaching. It was small, an engine and two shining cars, designed for speed at great expense. It was flying towards New Jorvik, and she could already see the huddle of people waiting to make their escape once it arrived.

She also saw a trunk with a man in it, and a terrified-looking Alonso- Eden’s man!- among their ranks, hanging back. She also knew that the mastermind behind all of this madness was on that train, in her sights, reachable.

As the battle raged behind her, Crystal’s hand darted to her saddlebag, where she’d stashed the bottle and rag and white spirits Zoe had given her and Ronja. In her vest pocket she found a match. She struck it and felt the heat lick her fingertips.

 _The depot won’t go up in time. Too slow._ Her eyes travelled up the track to the next building: Bluenight’s Bar.

  As the train chugged closer, she thought about all the things the bar had been to her family. It was her home, sure, but it was also an albatross around her neck. It had worked her grandfather near to death, caused her parents to flee town in disgrace, leaked torrents in the rain and let the dust blow right on through in the dry season.

_It’s all I’ve got._

The train was hissing to a stop and Rangers and the Generals were leaping aboard, their escape near complete.

Her fingertips singed. Crystal stuffed the match into the bottle and threw it, with all her might, straight through the window of Bluenight’s, into the room where her grandfather’s moonshine still sat bubbling. The roar and the flames blotted out all else.


	6. In which we ride off into the sunset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> E P I L O G U E 
> 
> Happily ever after, or forever for now.

It took a full day to put out the flames. By the time the volunteer fire brigade, aided by every ablebodied townsperson still within the city limits, had doused the last smouldering ruins, the church was nothing more than a few charred timbers and Bluenight’s was little more than a dark patch of grass near the railroad tracks. The livery stable was luckier; construction started to repair its collapsed roof within days of The Victory.

Doctor Peterson was run ragged tending to the wounded Dark Corps minions- who were packed away to the penitentiary infirmary in New Åland as soon as they could sit up- and the injuries of the townsfolk. There were few actual casualties within New Jorvik, though Justin Moorland had a damaged eardrum from the explosion at Bluenight’s and Alonso had some abrasions from flying shrapnel- he’d dragged the steamer trunk back from the explosion as the train labored away. Dorian and Allison were kept overnight for observation, but it was determined that their roughing-up was only skin deep. Syntax was helping in the small hospital in a few days’ time, having recovered in leaps and bounds, and Louisa pitched in changing bandages and fetching water to stay as close as possible to her girlfriend.

Nic Stoneground’s ragged wound was in danger of going septic, but thankfully a combination of Lisa’s expert care and a foul-smelling potion compliments of the Calico set him to rights by the day set aside for a town meeting. Carina refused to visit him in the hospital, but one of her library pages was suspiciously present in Lisa’s surgery during his stay.

…

On the day of the meeting, Jack was putting a final shine on his bartop- scarred by broken glass and ricocheting bullets, but clean as a whistle- when the first guests of came in. He excused himself from Carina, who’d been furiously scribbling at a manuscript over ice water since morning, and hurried to greet them.

“Eden!” Jack couldn’t help but sweep his barmaid into a hug.

“I’ve found the last of the Moorland horses, thank Aideen,” she sighed happily. Eden was sunburnt and dusty, but radiant with joy. Alonso clacked through the doors behind her, equally crispy but beaming. “Alonso’s been helping ride down the horses from the stampede, and he’s proven himself quite the vacquero.” She stood on tiptoe to deposit a kiss on Alonso’s cheek.

“Old ways die hard,” he laughed. “Though I’ll be riding out to New Stockholm within the week. Allison and I are bringing charges against Marshal Sabine and her cronies to the State, and hope to reform the Rangers back to their original values.”

“Speak of the devil!” Jack clapped Allison on the back as she swung inside the bar. “How do you feel about your new title, Marshal?”

Allison shifted uncomfortably, but was smiling regardless. “I’ve been on the run for so long it’s strange to don the badge again. But also pretty satisfying. When you really think about it, camping out on the range serving justice isn’t too far off from camping out on the range avoiding it.”

Jack nodded approvingly. “And Eden? Can I expect you back here five evenings a week now that Mr. Moorland’s stock has been returned?”

Eden chuckled. “For poker and drinks, yes, but I think you’ll have to find a new barmaid. Remember how my savings kept disappearing? Turns out it was part of Willow Northbook’s long con trying to get me to turn informant on the town in exchange for a ticket to Old Jorvik. She’d set up a charge account with the bank in my name.”

Alonso kissed the top of Eden’s head. “Glad it didn’t work. You and I are here for a while.”

Eden, Alonso, and Allison moved off to find a table, and were supplanted at the door by Freja and Linda, holding hands, and Lisa and Louisa, giggling smugly behind them.

Jack suppressed a grin. He was glad the lawyer and the gunsmith, both intense and skilled women, had found someone to match their ambition with love. “Welcome, ladies. Miss Chandler, how’s your case going?”

Linda squeezed Roo’s hand and rolled her eyes. “Exhausting! The sheer volume of evidence Jacqueline was able to snag from the Dark Corps mountain camp is staggering, but exactly what I need to prosecute at the trial next month. Suffice to say that Dark Corps is done in the American West.” Roo elbowed her. “Fine. And what correspondence from Mr. Sandoval I was able to steal from Willow’s rooms while Roo distracted her is one of the pillars of the case- shows premeditation of Kembell’s murder and a secret system of lantern signals. It’s juicy stuff.”

“And you deserve a drink, darlin,” Roo said gently. “You’ve been working round the clock for days.”

“One drink,” Linda said sweetly. “After that, lemonade. For both of us.”

“And rest!” chimed in Lisa. “The case is as good as won, Linda. We all deserve a break.” She wrapped her arms around Louisa. “And a celebration that our loved ones made it through that ordeal.”

Louisa blushed. “I swear, if anyone ever asks me to second them in a duel again, I’m sailing back to Australia like there’s no mañana. And I’m taking you with me.” She grabbed Lisa’s hand and the four headed for a table.

Jack smiled after them, missing Ydris especially, until another rowdy group swung through the doors. The whole contingent of Calico girls, led by Madame Miranda, arm-in-arm with Jamie and Zoe, was dressed in their pre-invasion finery and ebullience.

Jack gave them a courtly bow. “Ladies. Has your vacation been to your liking?”

Miranda laughed. “We’ve all been enjoying the simple life out at Rancho Escarlata. We’re taking enough time to let the bounties for the criminals we stranded in the desert add up.” The New Sweden County lawkeepers had been alerted to the bands of disoriented ex-Dark Corps outlaws roaming the land outside New Jorvik, confused as to why they’d awoken without guns, food, or any idea how they got there. It turned out that many had hefty sums placed on their apprehension, and Madame Miranda was reaping the benefits of this happy circumstance.

“By my calculations, I should be able to set up reasonable trust funds for each of my girls,” Miranda told Jack in an undertone as the ladies filtered into the bar. “They can choose to use them as dowries or downpayments on their futures. I know one of them wants to take over the General Store, now that Willow’s disappeared. Turn it into an apothecary.”

Jack nodded knowingly. “I know someone who’d be glad to go into business with her. _If_ he ever arrives. What will you do with the Calico, absent your scarlet women?”

Miranda grinned. “Whatever the hell I please. This town’s been in need of a quality hotel for years. But I don’t need to be the one running it, if someone offers the right price.”

She and Jamie waltzed off to the tune of the player piano, and Zoe gave Jack a broad wink. “Sell me a glass of claret, good sir?”

Jack ushered her into the bar. “You’ve earned it, ma’am. None of your students will be here, anyway.”

Zoe giggled. “If they were, I’d not mind. It would throw them for a loop about my age. Give me that much more air of mystery.” Zoe glided off in search of refreshment.

Clara and Josh, arm in arm, headed in next. Jack couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows. “Back within the pale, are we, Miss Diamondsong? Or have you convinced this good swain to join you in thievery?”

Clara gave Josh’s arm a squeeze. “I’m just here for the meeting. But now I have a reason to come down from the mountains for something other than a job.” Josh tugged at the brim of his hat, pleased and bashful at the same time, as if he couldn’t believe his luck to have Clara on his arm. Clara looked just as pleased. “So we’ll see. I may rejoin you law-abiding citizens yet.”

Hal strode in next, in company with Zelda and Justin Moorland. Justin still had a bandage around his head, but Zelda was guiding him through the crush of people with the utmost care.

“Young cowpersons! What do the Stockmen think of the new plan for communal grazing rights?” Jack asked, slipping Zelda a crisp ten dollar bill to get the betting going once the meeting was done. His bar had been hurting for its resident card sharp since she’d been occupied chasing down runaway livestock.

Hal beamed. “As president, I can speak for the Association and say that the proposal had a favourable reception. We’ll let the mines fill in over the next few years, let nature run its course with floods and erosion, and the Goldspur and Northwell lands will be fully restored. Then the grazing lands can move fairly.”

Justin nodded. “I’m just glad I passed out before I could get tricked into marrying Loretta Golddaughter. Turns out she thought that the lemonade Willow gave her to drug me was a love potion.” He pulled a face. “As nice as it would be to run my father’s herds on Golddaughter land, I’d get kidnapped by Dark Corps a hundred times to get another chance to be with Zelda.”

“Oh, stuff,” Zelda muttered, but was blushing as red as her duster.

Jack waved them into the bar, glad that the next generation of ranchers and cowgirls was taking over after the massive shake-up that was the Dark Corps Incident. Hal was standing tall, a natural leader; Zelda was back where she belonged, with whom she belonged.

Jacqueline slipped inside next, stealthy as ever behind her mask, but Jack made sure to meet her eyes and give her a slight bow. “Milady,” he said. “Will you be leaving us soon? Or can we count on seeing you around New Jorvik from now on?”

Jacqueline dipped a curtsey back at him. “I’m getting tired of running. So’s my horse. The Sheriff and I’ve discussed my becoming a private detective, and I even found my first case.”

“Oh?” Jack raised his eyebrows, and Ronja appeared at Jacqueline’s elbow.

“Relax, barkeep, I can pay her,” Ronja chuckled. “I led the State troopers to the pit mine and together we tracked Jessica, one of Sandoval’s operatives, and arrested her. The bounty on her capture was more than enough to hire a PI, and I’m confident that we can find who I’m looking for.” She patted her pocket ruminatively. The reward money was more than she’d ever dreamed of holding all at once, and she knew it would be enough to fund their search for her father, whoever he was.

“Plus, I don’t think either of us are quite ready to stay in one spot yet,” Jacqueline added. The two bustled in to find a seat. Izabella and Syntax were hot on their heels.

“Come home to stay? My back room’s empty without you,” Jack said cheekily.

Syntax rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I am looking for a place to stay…”

“ _We’re_ looking for a place to stay,” Izabella said boldly. “Although Syntax will be out on assignment soon, and I’ll be going with him. We’ll be recovering the wreckage of the Dark Corps mining equipment. Hopefully it’ll have leaked all of its dark energy by now.”

Syntax was nodding along. “If I can reconstruct the blueprints, I can start building innocuous earth-moving machines, really put New Jorvik on the map as a hub for mechanical advancement. And Mr. Stoneground’s pitched the idea of starting our own above-board mining company and-”

Jack met Izabella’s eyes. “Putting in with an inventor, eh? So I can count on you for weekly poker games again?”

Izabella bowed her head in assent. “We’ll see how the road treats us. This brilliant mind needs my help surviving out there in the wild. But I have a feeling we’ll be back.”

Jack took the lull in arrivals after Izabella and Syntax found a table to poke his head outside. He saw the Sheriff, his sister, and his nephew arriving, but Dorian hung back and let Rebeca and her son pass through first. Jack noted that Dorian had taken Crystal Bluenight aside, and he edged closer to the porch steps to overhear their conversation.

“Would you consider it?” Dorian was asking her.

Crystal blushed and fidgeted. “I…I can’t shoot, or track. I’m shy. Literally anyone would make a better Deputy than me!”

“Nonsense!” Dorian said gently. “Crystal, anyone can learn to shoot and track and give commands. What I _can’t_ teach somebody is integrity and courage, the willingness to give themselves for the people they serve.” He cut his eyes towards the place where Bluenight’s bar used to stand. “We all saw you give up everything you had to stop Sandoval and save those men. That took uncommon guts, and I’d be honoured if you’d join me. Besides,” he grinned towards the bar, where his family waited, and where a hulking shadow was waiting for him on the porch, “I need to spend some more time with the people I love. Don’t want my nephew to grow up not knowing how to summon the rain, you know?”

Crystal smiled up at him. “I’d be honoured, sir.”

Dorian winked at her. “You start Monday. Deputy.” He strode into the bar, where he shook Jack’s hand and where Rob pulled out a chair for him, his eyes gentle and welcoming. Crystal had a feeling they’d be seeing a lot of the smuggler around the Sheriff’s office, and not just on wanted posters.

Jack took a moment to savor the evening quiet beyond the doors of his bar, contrasted by the happy buzz of conversation and tinkling glassware from inside. One day, he thought. One day and-

He strained his ears. Something was singing along with the clink of glassware, and it was coming closer and closer. Jack ran out into Main street and let out a whoop as the bright canopies of Ydris’ fleet of wagons hove in sight.

Jack was running down the road, high as the moon; he met the caravan at the edge of town and threw himself into Ydris’ waiting arms.

“You’re early,” he mumbled into his fiance’s chest after coming up for air from a deep kiss.

Ydris threw back his head and laughed. “Heard there was a spot of trouble in your paradise, love. I had to come as fast as I could.” He buried his face in Jack’s tousled hair, giddy with relief that his betrothed was safe.

Jack pulled him towards the bar, his head and heart lighter than air. “C’mon, the party’s just getting started! There’ll be dancing!”

Ydris rolled his eyes. “Maybe I should have come tomorrow,” he sighed, but the grin on his face gave away his joy.

…

Dorian considered shooting into the ceiling to get everyone’s attention. Looking up at the ceiling, he could see early stars winking on through its ragged boards. But there’d been more than enough shooting in the past week; instead, he tapped on his pint of stout with a spoon. The room quieted immediately.

“First things first, has anyone heard from or seen Esmeralda Shadowlord since the explosion?” he asked.

Carina stilled the murmurs with an exaggerated librarian _sshhhhh._ “Last I saw she was riding like smoke ‘n oakum after the redheaded Dark Corps general, Darko by name,” she said.

Dorian furrowed his brow. “Might he have overpowered her? Shall we send a search party?”

Jacqueline barely held back a snicker. Carina smiled wryly. “Given that Esmeralda always gets her man, I do believe she’s just where she wants to be.”

“Very well then.” Dorian turned back to address the room. “Thank you all for coming, and, though it goes without saying, for risking your lives to rid this town of its oppressors. Thanks to you we can look forward to a future in New Jorvik free from those wishing to exploit the Pandoric energy beneath us. Let’s let sleeping evils lie and rebuild, together. To the future!” He raised his pint in a toast, and the cheer that arose rivalled even the explosion at Bluenight’s still in volume.

Clara, Roo, and Eden exchanged a furtive glance. They knew that Willow had escaped; they knew that she, along with Mr. Sandoval and Katja and Sabine, were likely at sea by now, sailing for Old Jorvik. They knew that this wouldn’t be the last history would see of Dark Corps, but for now, their town was safe. They raised a toast, and drank.

…

As the party whirled at Jack’s, Carina made her way home with her manuscript. She tucked it away and installed herself on her front porch with her feet propped up and a glass of whiskey in hand. The sun was sinking low over the Western hills and peace had once again come to New Jorvik.

As she knew he would, a burly form materialized from the twilight to place a booted foot on her stoop. He held a branch of sunset-pink roses in the crook of his one good arm. _Rosa stellata._

“Get out of my sight,” Carina drawled, but was already pouring him a glass of Scotch.

Nic Stoneground took this as an invitation, and ascended the porch, sweeping off his hat and bowing. “I never got the chance to thank you for saving my life, Miss Lightlee.”

Carina made a shooing motion. “Never mind that. I simply needed an explanation. How and why _did_ you get roped into working for Dark Corps in the first place?”

Nic let the proffered roses drop onto the table. “Professional curiosity, I suppose. I thought I could discover what it was they’d discovered and use that knowledge for good.” He gave her a searching look. “But Darko caught me looking where I shouldn’t have. I’d have been shot down in cold blood were it not for you, and now I have the chance to reclaim my good name. But you owe me an explanation, too. You never told me you could… shoot like that. Or ride and track like that.”

Carina smiled. “I told you I had hobbies.” She swirled her Scotch pensively.

Nic drained his in a single gulp. “Come dancing with me?” he asked, offering a hand.

“I have a better idea,” she grinned.

And together, they rode off into the sunset.

FIN.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roll those credits!
> 
> I am incredibly indebted to the good folks who lent me their original characters to populate this AU. 
> 
> @a-lonely-star-gazer, thanks for giving me a puzzle to solve with Allison  
> @claradiamondsong, thank you for the wonderful praise which kept me writing along happily even when it was hard.   
> @miikahima, Crystal was a delight to build on  
> @rebecawolfforest, I hope I did your leading man justice!   
> @sso-eden-dawnvalley, I wanted to write more Eden/Alonso fluffiness but that would have been unfair to everyone else. I just love them.  
> @esmeraldashadowlord, I hope that Esmeralda is perfectly happy creating a den of iniquity with her foppish loverboy and a working Pandoric energy drill. Spinoffs encouraged.  
> @ssonorthwell, Hal was hard to write into town with people, because he is so clearly home, home on the range, with only the deer and the antelope to play with. Thanks for the challenge.  
> @dizzy-izzy-sso, even without a bio to refer to, Izabella wrote herself. Well done.  
> @uglytwinkboi, Jack finally emerged from his bar. It just took him a week.  
> @general-bubba, I hope I gave Jacqueline the denouement she deserves!  
> @stormiesquall, thanks also for being a vocal fan and for giving me Louisa, whose surprising depths were a pleasure to discover  
> @mirandashadowborn, Number One SSO Wild West fan, thank you for living the AU and for worldbuilding with me!  
> @ankle-ghostwright, I hope Ronja uses her bear-cloak for many more adventures and dastardly deeds  
> @fieldingfreja, I wish I could have written a lock-and-load sequence featuring Roo, but Roo/Linda sweetness was much easier to pen  
> @willownorthbook, thanks for giving me a complex villain! I hope she got what she wanted.  
> @zdusk, I was awfully tempted to have Zelda gamble against Loretta for Justin's hand in marriage, but that's a story for another day  
> @jinx-kitty-cat, Zoe's the smartest character in the room. Thanks for her.


End file.
